Christopher is $20$ years younger than Ishaan. Ishaan and Christopher first met two years ago. Fourteen years ago, Ishaan was $3$ times as old as Christopher. How old is Ishaan now?
We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Ishaan and Christopher. Let Ishaan's current age be $i$ and Christopher's current age be $c$. The information in the first sentence can be expressed in the following equation: ${i = c + 20}$ Fourteen years ago, Ishaan was $i - 14$ years old, and Christopher was $c - 14$ years old. The information in the third sentence can be expressed in the following equation: ${i - 14 = 3(c - 14)}$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. Because we are looking for $i$, it might be easiest to solve our first equation for $c$ and substitute it into our second equation. Solving our first equation for $c$, we get: ${c = i - 20}$. Substituting this into our second equation, we get the equation: ${i - 14 = 3(} {(i - 20)}{ - 14)}$ which combines the information about $i$ from both of our original equations. Simplifying the right side of this equation, we get: $i - 14 = 3i - 102$. Solving for $i$, we get: $2 i = 88$. $i = 44$.